arson is tasty

We're constantly bombarded with stories. Some from our own brains, some from people who just like the sound of their voice, some we actually seek out and, often, those are the only ones that really interest us. Occasionally, though, an unsolicited story is surprisingly pleasing.

It's no secret that I dig stories. It's also no secret that I dig wine. The following are my impressions of an interesting story told to me over a glass of wine about said glass of wine. 

Heather and I went wine tasting (yay Groupon! yay wine!) because we're classy. That's a lie, we just really like wine. Usually, wine tasting for ladies of our ... nature... is an attempt to look and sound like we know and care about viticulture, and understand words like 'tannins' and what the what 'dirt' or 'boysenberry-ash' have to do with wine-flavors, when all we taste is, you know, wine. 

Meanwhile, we like to just chat. Over free wine. Undisturbed. This is impossible because winery owner/winemaker folk (wine-ers, if you will), are the most polite version of sales people ever. They're intrusive like used car salesmen, but helpful and sweet and actually care, and really really really want you to like and buy all their wine because its the fermented juice of their love fruit.

So, when Heather and I were purchasing our delicious vino, the nice lady said 'oh, did anyone tell you the story behind our wine?' at which point we both wanted to say 'yup, peace out, there's another wine tasting next door,' but she was so sweet and we did eat the complimentary snacks dipped in the chocolate fountain chocolate, so we smiled and said 'no, please do tell us all about it...'

What followed made me grin like a sadistic wino.

James Otis Kenyon was a dentist in Oregon in the early 1900s. When another dentist moved into town and started a practice, James BURNED HIS $*@%ing OFFICE DOWN. Badass. So, four generations of Otis Kenyons later, in Walla Walla, a vineyard was born bearing his name, with James' silhouette on a burninated label. One almost wants to see a gas can in his hand.

There's also a neat twist about how his wife hated him and told everyone he was dead but he was reunited with his family way later and lived to a hundred or something, but I was mostly shocked and pleased with the arson. You can read more about his story, and the wine, and even buy some (it's not just interesting, it's yummy, really) here.

Wino Magazine published another great article about this not-just-awesome-to-me story in 2009.

Oh, also, they offered matches in baller little matchboxes with the same label in the tasting room. SOLD.

why reading comprehension is more important than your face

warning: this post is not about books. i need to read more books other people are reading because otherwise i feel like a spoiler or a pretentious lady. i also need to read more books. that being said, i like reading because it increases my brains and heightens reading comprehension, which is a more useful skill than math or other things.


i was thinking to myself whilst cruising craigslist, "why is all the people so not awesome at words and spellinks?" it's because they are failures. LATER i was also thinking about The Phantom Tollbooth and how it is so spectacular. then i went DING ! reading comprehension. i enjoy puns and plays on words and silliness in language BECAUSE I GET IT. i do not enjoy poor grammar and spelling because THEY RUIN MY FUN.


if i could doodle awesome doodles like Allie, i would doodle you a picture of person walking down the street holding the bloody stubs of a bear's feet with passers by a-gawking in terror. probably followed by a very sad, footless bear. but instead i'll give you this:

WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? - you


well, says i, i will tell you. don't walk around with bear feet. this is funny to me, because one's feet tend to be bare, as opposed to belonging to a bear. this is funny.


sometimes, however, people aren't trying to be funny; they're just wrong. in these cases, they insert hilarious images into my brain. if this happens too often, i might start taking people seriously when they say things they don't mean. like on craigslist. 


to wit: a listing for an apartment for rent led with the subject line, "section eight excepted." .... lemme let that sink in a sec. ok sooooo i read that as discrimination, but i'm SURE they MEANT 'accepted.'


point: if you don't get it (reading comprehension), you'll sound like a tool. if you sound like a tool, people will think you're a tool. even if you're not a tool. subpoint: because english is such a mishmash of languages and proletarian hullabaloo and a variety of hifalutin and total-garbage vernaculars, if enough people use a word that's not a word, or think a word means something it doesn't, IT BECOMES A WORD. like magic. BLACK magic. that's why 'irregardless' is in the dictionary. it's also why flammable and inflammable mean the same thing. I HATE THAT AND IT RUINS MY FUN. 


i keep getting distracted by this awesome bear. he's like 'my feet?' i love it. anyway. reading comprehension is an important skill. know what makes you more gooder-er at it? reading. know what book will make you laugh your pants off while learning to comprehend VERDS? the phantom tollbooth. i may have lied earlier when i said this post wasn't about a book. ok, they also made a movie, but it's way funnererer to read the funny because it's about words.


and a little bit about numbers. this guy (the mathemagician) thinks numbers are the only thing thing that count. GET IT?!!?

fruity rum punch

if you have ever done anything stupid while under the influence, you understand the power of a fruity rum punch. the following excerpt (oh look, another cop out post) is from Jen Lancaster's memoir/novel "Bitter is the New Black: Confessions of a condescending, egomaniacal, self-centered smart-ass, or why you should never carry a Prada gag to the unemployment office." not my usual type of book, but oh so hilarious and fitting (can't you tell?). of course i'm not done with this book but i have to share some hilarity because it's rare that a book makes me crack up when i'm just, you know, alone. reading. 



none of this is spoiler-y, but to set it up a bit, jen caught her coworker courtney (who is engaged to brad) fooling around with another coworker, chad, on their company cruise. this person she dubbed 'the chadifornicator.' jen just confronted courtney about the tryst and her engagement, which courtney sobbingly explained she didn't particularly want to enter into but the scene was too romantical to say no (to the engagement; she clearly enjoyed the chadifornication). enjoy.

Her eyes get watery and she begins to sniffle. I root around in my bag to find her a Kleenex. Ooh, look, I have gum!

I remember something. 'Wait, weren't you drinking mai tais with Chad at the sales conference when you hooked up?'

Courtney blows her nose while nodding yes.

'Essentially, you allowed a fruity rum punch to alter the course of your life TWICE? Oh, my God, you're such a WHORE!' This brings a fresh spate of tears. I know I should be more compassionate, but when you sleep around while wearing someone else's ring, I have trouble mustering sympathetic noises.

'Court... Court... COURTNEY! Listen to me. You have to be honest with Brad. Not later. Now. You cannot string him along anymore. It's just not right.' Courtney begins to cry huge racking sobs.

'People are looking at us. Can you please make them stop?' she begs.

'What do you expect? Acting like a whore attracts attention. They probably think you're here to go on Jerry Springer.'

'WAH!'

'Ok, Ok, I'm on it.' I look around. Although everyone from the Atlanta flight has collected their luggage, they've yet to leave. A sweaty fat man with an orange flowered vinyl bag has moved next to us to hear better. I whirl around to face him. 'Yo, Marlon Brando, yeah, with the ugly carry-on, move along. Also? Burn that bag when you get home.' I see an older woman with stop sign red hair pretending to tie her shoes. Perhaps if they weren't LOAFERS her ruse would be more credible. 'And you, Red? Aren't you old enough to know better? FYI, a six-dollar box of hair color is NOT a bargain. Get going. And the rest of you?' I sweep the crowd with an accusatory finger. 'Seriously, piss off. This does not concern you.' I stomp a pony-skinned mule and make shooing motions.

We attract the attention of airport security. An officer cautiously moves toward us and I see him pat his waist in the direction of his side arm. 'Oh, keep your polyester pants on, Rent-a-Cop,' I say, waving dismissively in his direction. 'Everything is fine. The situation is handled. My friend here is simply dealing with the ramifications of being a whore.'

HIGH-larious, i tell you. and a few paragraphs later, when jen's boyfriend picks them up, for your amusement:

'What happened to Courtney?' Fletch asks.

I sigh. 'Mai tais.'

i'm in love with words

in case you haven't noticed. and to back up that statement, i shall now ramble at you about the children's book that influenced me more than i ever realized (until i got all growed up n realized how much it influenced me).


i know i say it all the time, but if you haven't read it, READ IT, and if you have read it, read it again. it's only more awesome and fun as a growdup. i'm, of course, talking about norton juster's THE PHANTOM (em-eff-ing) TOLLBOOTH.
this SUPER FREAKING AWESOME NOVEL was intended, clearly, to teach kids about words and math and silliness. the world is boring. milo drives through the mysterious tollbooth, and SHAZAM, the world is ridiculous. not unlike what alice encounters in wonderland, in, yanno, alice in wonderland. and similarly, milo feels he's the only sane one in the place. however, like alice, he learns much more than he bargained for. 


to wit:

'Pardon me for staring,' said Milo, after he had been staring for quite some time, 'but I've never seen half a child before.'

'It's .58 to be precise,' replied the child from the left side of his mouth (which happened to be the only side of his mouth).

'I beg your pardon?' said Milo.

'It's .58,' he repeated; 'it's a little bit more than a half.'

'Have you always been that way?' asked Milo impatiently, for he felt that that was a needlessly fine distinction.

'My goodness, no,' the child assured him. 'A few years ago I was just .42 and, believe me, that was terribly inconvenient.'

'What is the rest of your family like?' said Milo, this time a bit more sympathetically.

'Oh, we're just the average family,' he said thoughtfully; "mother, father, and 2.58 children - and, as I explained, I'm the .58.'

it continues into hilarity and awesomocity, of course, but i'll let you discover (/rediscover) that on your own. Milo also jumps to Conclusions (an island), and learns that both math and words can be quite confusing. 'only when you use a lot to say a little,' as the watchdog Tock tells him (don't ask why he's not called Tick). also, the fun of puns taken seriously can make both kids and adults titter with 'zomgz.'



i've absotively no idea when i first read this book. i know it stuck on me like glue, and i know my buddy Milo was named after the main character, and i know that plays on words have always made me laugh (and feel smart). i know the illustrator made me comfortable because the illustrations of jules feiffer reminded me of the illustrations of quentin blake's illustrations in roald dahl's novels...(you know, charlie and the chocolate factory, matilda, the bfg...)


aaaaanyway. the book is based on puns, which i freaking love, so, so should you. soso. he saves princesses! their names are Rhyme and Reason! for cryin out loud. ok, anywho. basically, zelda beta, for wordnerds, times a billion, the book. 



ready, GO.

dream of a ridiculous man

on recommendation from my special lady Nancy, i purchased a tiny little novel at half price books called Einstein's Dreams, by Alan Lightman. the dude working the register was so excited about it, i got doubly enthused to read it. on my free half price books bookmark, he scrawled 'dream of a ridiculous man.' this only titillated me more to get my read on. as if i didn't already trust Nancy's judgment and her knowledge of my taste in literature.


i was, of course, immediately enthralled. this book is a concept in and of itself. it's creatively constructed as a series of dreams einstein dreams each night while his theory of time is evolving in his mindgrapes. yanno. space-time and all that jazz. clocks moving more slowly and light bending and the speed of light being different and gravity and other physics hullabaloo i don't understand. 

Since there exist in this four dimensional structure [space-time] no longer any sections which represent "now" objectively, the concepts of happening and becoming are indeed not completely suspended, but yet complicated. It appears therefore more natural to think of physical reality as a four dimensional existence, instead of, as hitherto, the evolution of a three dimensional existence.

thanks, Einstein, i didn't feel dumb enough yet today. time (or rather, the past/present/future distinction) is an illusion! anywho. on to the juice.

we already know how much i love nietzsche's concept of the eternal return; this is just one scenario entertained in these dreams. in fact, it is the first dream. there's a way to get cailin into a book (much like with the unbearable lightness of being, starting out with a SHABAM! cailin's favorite ideas IN YO FACE BOOYAH. and cailin goes *grin*). here's an excerpt (which actually comprises about half the 'chapter') from that dream:

Some few people in every town, in their dreams, are vaguely aware that all has occurred in the past. These are the people with unhappy lives, and they sense that their misjudgments and wrong deeds and bad luck have all taken place in the previous loop of time. In the dead of night these cursed citizens wrestle with their bedsheets, unable to rest, stricken with the knowledge that they cannot change a single action, a single gesture. Their mistakes will be repeated precisely in this life as in the life before. And it is these double unfortunates who give the only sign tat time is a circle. For in each town, late at night, the vacant streets and balconies fill up with their moans.

Sorry to bum you out. the reason i love this concept is that it's true even as it's irrelevant. we can't change anything we've done anyway. there are no checkpoints at which to respawn and learn from your mistakes and try that situation again. anywho. many of the theories of time illustrated in the few people and towns in these dreams are bummers. because time is a bummer. but it's poetic and makes you think.


the world where there is only the present, and it's the end of the world. people can't stop hugging because they'll never see each other again. a woman sits alone and weeps because she'll never see anyone again. no one will ever come back. a man notices it's raining and marvels that it's raining at the last moment of existence. then it gets sunny and he marvels that it's sunny at the last moment of existence.


the world where time moves more slowly the higher up you are. people build their houses on stilts in the mountains. height is status. whenever anyone must go down from their house, into town, or to travel, the rush as fast as possible, because time moves faster and they're aging. but over time, the consequences of the altitude and seclusion make the people die young anyway. they all forget why they went up to begin with. 


each dream, each world where time has a different characteristic, or rule, or attitude, is relatable, in a metaphysical way. as you read you go 'oh cool' and then 'oh sad' and then 'ooooh i've been there.' it at once makes you doubt everything, feel nostalgic, live in the moment, and want to value every choice and moment you have left in you. i think the guy at the bookstore was referring to einstein as the ridiculous man. but i think we're all pretty ridiculous, and time is ridiculous, and i wouldn't dream (har har) of ridiculing this novel. 

and again and again

COP OUT POST!!!!!!!!!1one
ok, i have been trying really hard not to say more things about this, the most awesome of books, until i actually finish it and can find something ultimately profound and funsauce to blabber about. HOWEVER. ive been superbly slow and hyper-underline-y and i'm almost done and i really really really just need to blurb this blurb cuz it would be too long to put in a post about OTHER stuff TOO so here goes.


 The Unbearable Lightness of Being is pretty much my soulmate. it explores Nietzsche's eternal return in familiar AND new/awesome ways. one of which i will gladly show you now. also, i must say, i love when the author inexplicably pops out of the text and goes 'ISNT THAT WEIRD!?' without explanation or context, just popping your bubble of suspended disbelief and making you want to go 'YAH TOTALLY LETS HUG ABOUT IT!' anyway, here you go:

Several days later, he was struck by another thought, which I record here as an addendum to the preceding chapter: Somewhere out in space there was a planet where all people would be born again. They would be fully aware of the life they had spent on earth and of all the experience they had amassed here.

And perhaps there was still another planet, where we would all be born a third time with the experience of our first two lives.

And perhaps there were yet more and more planets, where mankind would be born one degree (of life) more mature.

That was Tomas's version of eternal return.

Of course we here on earth (planet number one, the planet of inexperience) can only fabricate vague fantasies of what till happen to man on those other planets. Will he be wiser? Is maturity within man's power? Can he attain it through repetition?

Only from the perspective of such a utopia is it possible to use the concepts of pessimism and optimism with full justification: an optimist is someone who thinks that on planet number five the history of mankind will be less bloody. A pessimist is one who thinks otherwise. 

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!

I was just going to giggle and ramble a bit about finding sense within nonsense (for isn't that what we all do with everything every day all the time? impose structure to find meaning? after all, disorder is just the order we weren't expecting.) using Carroll's Jabberwocky as the most appropriate and awesome example, but upon revisiting the Alice books, my mindgrapes have exploded into a veritable barrel of wine-worthy stompables. 


so i suppose the royal we shall begin by saying we shall attempt to avoid the roads most traveled in overall investigations into Alice's adventures, and focus instead on language, as, in case you haven't yet noticed, it is one of my most favoritest things. i must also point out that i am addressing the books Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll; not the Disney movie or the more recent Burton adaptation (or any of the countless mini-serieseses or tv shows or video games), though all are fantabulous and worthy of the attention of inquiring minds. 


and now for the branches: finding sense within nonsense, and subjectivity to language. these are branches like the trunks of two trees that grew up too close together, and now share a base. i'm going to try not to get super poststructuralist-y, but fair warning: i'm going to quote Foucault (who would not like to be called a poststructuralist, thank you). 


portmanteau: fantabulous
so much of these novels is encompassed by language and logic games that are silly and nonsensical. but it's not entirely nonsensical or it wouldn't make any sense, would it? and it does, doesn't it? (cue a 'that reminds me of' regarding Waiting for Godot.. i won't do that to you.)


i had to memorize Jabberwocky when i was in 6th grade. we were studying phonics, because apparently some 6th graders cant read..? i dunno, it made absolutely no sense (ha!), and was totally out of context, and we didn't even read these books in class. we didn't discuss the literary characteristics. yay public school! but anyway, what i find now is that it doesn't really matter, because it totally made sense anyway. if you're not familiar with the poem Alice find through the looking glass and Humpty Dumpty later explains, the full text can be found here. here's the beginning, for poops and guffaws:

Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe. 

nonsense, no? we, as readers, can suspend disbelief enough to assume the author is telling us about some dreamt-up creatures, but what's with the dreamt-up adjectives and adverbs? as Humpty explains, this poem utilizes portmanteau. portmanteau is when you mash two words together to make a word that means both, like 'fantabulous' (fantastic and fabulous). in this excerpt, Humpty explains 'slithy' to be a combination of lithe and slimy, where 'mimsy' is flimsy and miserable. 


Alice, however, throws a little hissy fit over it, because she's been raised with a proper education and questions whether one can just make words, and make them mean things. 

'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master - that's all.'

this is just one of the plenty of word games Carroll uses to poke fun at our culture, morals, etiquette, use of language, and sense of logic (such as the bread-and-butter-fly who lives on weak tea with cream in it), but i don't want to go there. ps, remind you at all of Phantom Tollbooth yet?

'Many of the things I'm supposed to know seem so useless that I can't see the purpose in learning them at all.'

anywho, on to the mastery of language and it's mastery over us.


structure and subjectivity: you are language's tool
we apply logic and structure to everything in order to understand and categorize it. language is the most common tool at our disposal to do so. so what happens if you accidentally say 'gregarious' (sociable) when you mean 'egregious (very bad indeed)?' you've done gone changeded history, you have. one little word changed the meaning of the sentence, which changed the meaning of the story into which that sentence was written. and it's a story because we impose that beginning, middle, and end on everything because that's how we understand things because that's how we learn them and what a fun little circle that becomes, noooo?


Humpty Dumpty refuted Alice's critique of his making words mean whatever he wanted them to mean by questioning 'which is to be master.' he asserts that he is the master of the words:

'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.'

he's the master of words, which is all well and good, except no one else knows what the words mean to him until and unless he explains the meanings he has attributed to them. this is bordering on Sapir-Whorf again, sorry. but i suppose this does fall into the realm of linguistic relativity so ON WE TREAD!

the Caterpillar is a favorite character who gets only a couple pages and lines, and that's all he needs. when Alice encounters him he asks who she is, and she can't answer, because she's changed (sizes) too many times to be sure who she is. he demands she explain herself.

'I can't explain myself, I'm afraid, Sir,' said Alice, 'because I'm not myself, you see.'

shortly thereafter, as a test of her self-doubt, the Caterpillar asks she recite a particular poem, which she does, but not quite right. after her recitation:

'That is not said right,' said the Caterpillar.

'Not quite right, I'm afraid,' said Alice, timidly: 'some of the words have got altered.'

'It is wrong from beginning to end,' said the Caterpillar decidedly; and there was silence for some minutes.

what Alice saw as an alteration of a few words changed the entire poem 'from beginning to end' to the Caterpillar. it was therefore, not the same poem. the problem is that we are not the masters of language. we cannot assume what others will hear when we say what we think we mean, if we even know what we think we mean, or think we're saying it. one last quote, the prophesied Foucault, from his Discourse on Language (of course):

Inclination speaks out: 'I don't want to have to enter this risky world of discourse; I want nothing to do with it insofar as it is decisive and final; I would like to feel it all around me, calm and transparent, profound, infinitely open, with others responding to my expectations, and truth emerging, one by one. All I want is to allow myself to be borne along, within it, and by it, a happy wreck.' Institutions reply: 'But you have nothing to fear from launching out; we're here to show you discourse is within the established order of things, that we've waited a long time for its arrival, that a place has been set aside for it - a place that both honours and disarms it; and if it should have a certain power, then it is we, and we alone, who give it that power.'

the individual is raging against being misinterpreted, and wants to be and discuss and understand. but institutions (culture, academia, business, whatever realm or institution is affronting and depriving the individual of the purest form of discourse at any given moment) won't allow it. discussion, understanding, debate, all rely on others' interpretations of meaning, which are never quite right. therefore, we have institutions to define things for us, and put language and 'discourse' as a whole in its place. further, it is not the individual, but the institutions who give discourse power. hmmmmm....


back to Humpty Dumpty - are we the master of language?